


For the Record

by RedChucks



Category: The Mighty Boosh (TV)
Genre: Fear Of Being Touched, Ghosts, Haunted House, M/M, Monkeys, Scary Scenes, fear of dying, fear of the dark, fears, scary story, very light horror
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-14
Updated: 2019-06-14
Packaged: 2020-05-07 11:48:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 11,104
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19208791
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RedChucks/pseuds/RedChucks
Summary: Howard and Vince are snooping around an old abandoned house, looking for a jazz record belonging to the ghost of one of Howard's idols. Instead they find themselves trapped in a maze of fear. Can they get out, will they get out? 'Course they will!(Written for the BringingBackTheBoosh prompt - Supernatural)





	1. Chapter 1

“Why exactly are we here again?” Vince asked, looking around at the decrepit moorland cottage with disgust at the outdated decor and unfashionable portraits on the walls, sneering at the dust as if daring it to even touch his purple suede cowboy boots, silver skinnies, sheer silver blouse, or purple, lace trimmed, cape. There was curiosity in his eyes too because he could hear the faint snuffling sounds of mice somewhere at the back of the house and they were always good for a natter and it had been ages since he’d talked to a country animal rather than an urban one. What was missing, at least to Howard’s mind, was the appropriate fear that should have come from being in a genuine haunted house. 

“We are here,” he said through clenched teeth, having already explained at least thirty seven times on the car journey over. “Because the ghost of Screaming Sax Stevenson appeared to me and ordered me to come out here and find his long lost final recording. To help him finally get out of limbo and ascend to musical nirvana. I did tell you. Several times.” 

Vince, still stubbornly unimpressed, rolled his eyes. “That’s why you’re here, yeah. What I’m asking is why I’m here, exactly? What do I care if Screaming Sex Pest Sampson gets out of limbo or not? I don’t even like jazz, why would I want to sort through his creepy, old house looking for some dusty record? Anyway, what’s to say he’d even get into nirvana? He made jazz records. What’s to say he won’t be going straight to musical hell if we unleash this lost album on the world?”

“For one thing, it’s Screaming Sax Stevenson, not Sex Pest Sampson,” Howard hissed, tucking his arms in tight to his body as he looked around the dank house. He hated when Vince was like this, all cocky and argumentative. How was he supposed to be brave if he wasn’t doing it to protect Vince? “And you’re here because I foolishly asked you to come,” he continued, ignoring Vince’s muttered comment of ‘begged me more like,’ as he began to look around the room for clues. “And because I promised to take you to the TopShop factory outlet on the way back, remember?”

Vince perked up at that and half skipped as he crossed the room to stand too close to Howard, so that their shoulders were just about touching, but not touching enough for Howard to reasonably say, ‘don’t touch me.’ Howard wasn’t sure exactly when Vince had worked out that sweet spot of closeness but it had been frustrating him for weeks. How was he supposed to function like a normal human being and ignore the voice inside of him that was raging that he was still a massive gayist whether he acknowledged it or not, if Vince kept standing so close and yet out of reach? It was infuriating.

He wanted to step away but couldn’t deny that he felt braver when Vince was standing beside him, and tried to strike a manly pose as he surveyed the ramshackle old house. Somewhere in the dust and cobwebs and rotting furniture was Screaming Sax Stevenson’s last album and he, Howard Moon, was going to find it. It would, no doubt, bring him fame and fortune, and rightly so, it was only natural, but Howard wasn’t in it for the glory. No, sir. He was doing it for Screaming Sax Stevenson. And not because the ghost of the dead jazz legend had scared him absolutely silly either, oh no, Howard was most definitely not afraid. No, he was doing it, he reminded himself, so that the world could finally hear the genius of that divine and lost album. And to free the spirit of the jazzy saxophonist from limbo. 

Vince didn’t understand. He’d passed through limbo, sure, but hadn’t experienced the fear and tedium of it, the horror of being stuck in that place, with those obnoxious skeletons and their cruel pranks. Howard couldn’t let a fellow jazz man suffer through that. He had to help him, it was his duty, and if it led to international fame and fortune and hoards of fans throwing themselves at him, well so be it, it was a sacrifice Howard was willing to take. 

At just that moment a strong wind passed overhead, rattling the old abandoned house and whistling down the chimney with a howl that made both men jump. Vince grabbed at Howard’s arm and Howard, quietly relieved, held his tongue and let Vince’s small hands clutch at him as they both turned toward the sound. The howling went on and on, shaking the foundations of the house, and becoming more and more human with each creak and shriek, until Howard began to hear a grinding beneath the sound, of stone moving against its will, and realised that the fireplace wasn’t just shaking with the force of the storm, it was moving with a will of its own, the stones shifting until the soot filled space resembled a mouth, if a mouth had ever resembled a gaping, black, hellish maw.

Vince screamed, his hands tightening convulsively around Howard’s arm, and Howard in turn grabbed on to Vince until they were holding one another in an awkward embrace, staring in horror as the fireplace howled and the two dust blackened photographs on the mantle above it blinked and became eyes, soulless and eternal and staring right at them.

“Who dares disturb my slumber?” the fireplace intoned with all the power of the storm. But his (probably very carefully rehearsed) speech was interrupted by Vince’s shriek and Howard’s pleas that the being please not kill him, he had so much still to give! “Oi! Shut up!” the fireplace yelled in a quasi-British accent with definite American undertones. “Do you know how long I’ve been waiting for someone to dare to enter here, just so I could give this speech?” The metal of the picture frames creaked as it blinked at them and Howard and Vince fell silent, stunned. It wasn’t everyday that an anthropomorphic fireplace stared at you grumpily and attempted to pout (it certainly happened, just not every day) and they were both too terrified to interrupt again. 

The fireplace nodded, or at least that’s what it looked like it was trying to do, then cleared it’s flue, and began again.

“Who dares disturb my slumber? Is it not known far and wide that any who enter here shall come face to face with that which they most fear? That any who seeks to steal was has been hidden here for the good of the universe shall be forced to confront the darkest desires of their soul in exchange for their impudence?! Who dares to come here and face me?”

For a moment there was silence but then Vince, feeling a little more sure of himself now that he knew what they were dealing with and that he was allowed to introduce himself, grinned and waved his hand. 

“Alright? I’m Vince. Vince Noir, rock’n’roll star,” he waited but there was silence from the fireplace. That was alright though, Vince was used to people being struck dumb in his presence. Howard wasn’t talking either though so Vince figured he had better fill the silence. “Yeah, so I’m Vince, and this crazy character here is Howard Moon. Howard Moon...” his brain faltered as it searched for a rhyme. “...greasy spoon. Yeah. Anyway, we’re in a band. You’ve probably heard of us.”

“Nope,” the fireplace responded glibly before launching back in to its intimidating howl. It certainly had a mighty set of lungs for a thing without, well, lungs. “But you fools must most certainly know of me! I am known far and wide! Feared across the land! No one may come in to my presence and escape unharmed!”

“Sorry mate,” Howard finally piped up, his fear deflating as he looked at the fireplace and thought, ‘what a dick’. “But I’m afraid we’ve never heard of you. And no one else has either. There are no other houses or people around for miles for anyone to know who you are. This is just an ugly pile of rubble in the middle of a soggy field.”

“What?!”

“You heard me you brick faced berk,” Howard continued. He always enjoyed standing up to the bad guys, once he got in to the swing of things, especially when Vince was there to be impressed by him and cheer him on. “I mean, what’s with that look? Ooh, you’re a big scary fireplace. What are you going to attack us with? Soot? Your fire’s not even lit. And how d’you plan to restrain us, you outmoded heat source? You haven’t got any arms!”

“Uh, Howard?” Vince tugged at his sleeve, sounding increasingly concerned, “Howard!” but Howard was on a roll and wasn’t about to back down now. 

“What are you going to do?” he taunted the dusty stones. “Show me all my worst fears? Nice try. I’m Howard Moon, man of a million misfortunes. I’ve already met my worst fears. They come in to my shop. Daily! Usually to ask if we sell crisps! You want to scare me, ha! Do your w-“

He was interrupted by a dusty arm chair whizzing out from the corner of the room and tripping him up. Leather straps appeared and held him in position so that he had no choice but to be scooted forward, trapped against the mouldy cushions. But that was the least of his worries. The fireplace, infuriated by the fierce mocking, had erupted in flames, fire spewing from its opening like it was auditioning to be a dragon in a Game of Thrones fix-it fic. Howard shrieked and silently begged his bladder to hold it together because his back-up pants were out in the van. 

Vince was likewise strapped in to a faded armchair and screaming, his whole face stretched wide as he shrieked and kicked against the battered wooden legs of the animated furniture. Oh god! Howard thought, we really are going to die! Oh god! Vince thought, my hair! I can’t die! I’ll never get to go to the TopShop factory outlet!

The fireplace continued to shoot forth flames until the two hapless men were close enough to feel their eyebrows singe, at which point the armchairs came to a halt and the fireplace relented, though the flames continued to crackle in its grate. It took in the horrified faces of the two men, the glass of its eyes glinting evilly as it laughed low and long.

“Now who’s fire is lit, you baboon’s backside? Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!! Prepare to face insanity, death, and destruction!”

“Hey, hold on a minute!” Vince yelled, his voice high and reedy as he struggled against the chairs that were once again moving at a slow march toward the hellish open mouth of the fireplace. “Hey, hey, hey! You can’t just be incinerating innocent people! We only came for some stupid record. We’ll just grab it and go. Just point us in the right direction and we’ll be out of your hair. Your chimney, or bricks, or thatch, or whatever. We don’t want trouble, honest!”

The chairs hesitated as the fireplace glared at Vince before it’s bricks took on a pouting expression. “He said my rubble was ugly,” it said petulantly, and Vince gave Howard a warning look when he opened his mouth to confirm the insult. 

“Yeah, Howard’s a prickbiscuit,” Vince told the fireplace, fighting to keep his charming grin from slipping when their captor roared with laughter, heating his skin until it almost burned. “But you know it’s not true,” Vince continued, doing his best to flirt with the demonic wall and hopefully get them free. “Your look’s a classic! You can’t be a properly possessed building without a bit of well-weathered rubble, can you? No one’d take you seriously if you’d got your furnishings at IKEA! I mean, look at the way Howard’s dressed, like a blind geography teacher!”

The fireplace laughed heartily again and Vince closed his eyes against the heat and smoke. “He is indeed a fashion disaster! You are correct! Ha ha ha ha ha!!!!”

Vince kept right on smiling, even if inwardly he was wondering how someone could vocalise exclamation marks like that, and just how insane that made the demon or monster or whatever it was that Howard had dragged them both in to. Getting the thing on side seemed to be their only chance to escape with their skin in tact so he amped up his smile a few more watts, even though he knew it would likely give him wrinkles in the future, and promised himself that when the ordeal was over he would buy everything he wanted from the TopShop outlet, and use Howard’s credit card to pay for it. 

“I like the moss you’ve got going on your roof beams and all,” Vince said with a cheeky wink. “It’s well romantic and brooding.”

“Oh thank you!” the fireplace boomed, the stones around it turning rosy. “It’s lichen actually. It’s very rare. It’s on the endangered species list.”

“Nice,” Vince enthused. “That is well cryptid-chic. I’ll bet you’re the talk of all the other demonic buildings. They all know you, am I right?” The fireplace chuckled again, coyly, if it were possible for an evil fireplace to be coy, and Vince did his best to seem at his ease. “So, if you could just let us go, we could-“

“No!” the fireplace pouted, it’s fire flaring and licking out of the grate. “No! It has been years and years since I had any victims, I mean, visitors. And rules are rules. If you want to try and take anything from this Prison of Evil and Unstable Things you must seek it out and in the process face the things you most fear! Now shoo! Go die in some other room! But make it entertaining.”

And with that Howard and Vince were sped through the house, moving so fast they couldn’t tell which direction or floor they had ended up on before they were unceremoniously dumped on the dusty floor at the end of a long corridor. Howard looked up slowly, sure that in the next second he’d come face to face with some vicious monster, but the the hall was dark and empty. There was a window behind them but it was boarded up and the curtains that hung from the rusted rail above were tattered, as if they had been pulled on by someone desperate not to be dragged away. This was it, he realised. They were going to die. 

“Well, well done, Vince,” he snapped sarcastically. “Good going, there. Now look what you’ve gotten us in to.”

“Me?!” Vince turned angrily, sitting up and beginning to brush the thick dust from his cape. “You’re the one who had a go at the possessed fireplace and got him all angry at us. It’s thanks to me that we didn’t get incinerated!”

“Oh, fine, what do you want, a medal?” Howard spat back, climbing unsteadily to his feet and holding out his hand to help Vince up.

“A thank you would be a start,” Vince shot back, pulling on Howard’s arm more than was strictly necessary. “If it weren’t for me we’d be fried to a crisp!”

“Yeah? Well we’re still going to die!” Howard shot back. “Now help me think of a way to get out of here.”

He began to pace about, filling the end of the corridor with dust and anxiety and jazz scented sweat but refusing to actually walk down the long, dark, warped looking hallway, dotted with closed doors and cobwebs. Vince looked along the length, searching for any sign of life, but there were no mouse droppings or holes or scratch marks, and the cobwebs were ancient and abandoned. There was no life up here, but a turn in the hall made him think that maybe there might be a staircase, and that was what they needed to aim for. 

“Why don’t we just walk down there?” he asked casually. “We’ll be out in a jiffy!”

Howard jumped sharply, looking around like a shifty-eyed wild dog and Vince wanted to kick himself for bringing up Jiffy bags. It had only been a month since Howard had been trapped in a giant Jiffy and mailed to Scotland by a deranged creature made entirely of envelopes and he was still jumpy about it. Vince gave him an apologetic look, the whole Jiffy incident had kind of been his fault, but this definitely wasn’t and he knew he was unlikely to get an apology off Howard for getting them in to this mess.

Howard looked up at where Vince had pointed, at the twisted, rotting corridor, but still didn’t move forward. The fireplace’s words were ringing in his ears, burning through his skull, that he would need to face his fears (and Howard had so so many fears) but on top of that he had made a promise to the ghost of Screaming Sax Stevenson - more of a pact actually - to find his record, and play it for the world, and he said as much to Vince, in a clench-toothed mumble.

“Oh, come on,” Vince rolled his eyes, stalking about but unwilling, just as Howard was, to actually move down the corridor. “You can’t seriously want to look for that record? Howard!” Vince stopped in front of him, searching for the eye contact that Howard never gave, frustrated that they seemed to be forever stuck at the end of a scary corridor that neither of them wanted to walk down. “For all we know that ghost was trying to trick you in to coming here!”

Howard looked hurt, like a puppy hit with a newspaper, but still refused to look Vince in the eye, no matter that they were standing nearly toe to toe. “But why would Screaming Sax Stevenson do that?” he asked in a small voice, and Vince sighed, which only made Howard look twitchy. Even his moustache was twitching. “He’s one of my heroes, why would he do that?”

Vince bit back another sigh. ‘Because you’re a soft touch!’ he wanted to scream in Howard’s face. ‘Because you’ll do anything for anyone who shows you the slightest bit of affection! Anyone but me.’ But he didn’t. Instead he crossed his arms and gave Howard a look and planted his feet.

“Have you ever seen a photo of this jazz hero of yours, Howard? Did you ever meet him?” Howard’s kicked puppy look intensified and Vince knew he’d hit on the truth. “What’s to say this ghost wasn’t just claiming to be... Steven... Jimmy... Sex... whatever his name is! just to get you on side? That fireplace said this was where evil and unstable objects are kept. It’s not someone’s old home, or where an album was recorded. It’s a haunted house, Howard, and we have to get out!”

Howard nodded, deep down he knew it was true, even if it was strange to hear sense being spoken in Vince’s voice. But he couldn’t ignore the way the ghost had appeared to him, playing his saxophone like it was a beautiful lady, begging for Howard’s help, flattering him. He slumped. He’d been duped, and they needed to get out the house. He glanced at Vince, but his big blue eyes just asked too many questions, and held too many emotions, so he turned to look back down the corridor instead. It was only a corridor, he told himself, an empty hallway lined with shut doors. He turned back to Vince, focusing on his hair so he wouldn’t have to look at his eyes.

“You’re right,” he admitted thickly, swallowing several times to try and clear his throat. “You’re right. We should go.”

As if on cue the house creaked ominously, and both men jumped and grabbed hold of one another again before realising what they’d done and jumping apart. With a glance at each other they turned to face the corridor and began to walk. It was time to face some fears. 


	2. Chapter 2

Howard was jittering, wishing for a break in the silence, trying to focus on the end of the corridor and the promised freedom, trying to ignore the fact that they were walking but didn’t seem to be getting anywhere. The floorboards beneath their feet should have been creaking and shifting, old and rotting as they were, but there was nothing, just the silence he couldn’t stand, but when Vince started talking he immediately wished he’d shut up. 

“Howard? Howard? Howard. Hey, Howard. Howard? Howard!”

“What?” Howard asked through gritted teeth. They’d been walking for ten whole seconds but were still no where near the first door, let alone the end of the corridor and the warping of the space around them was making him motion sick. 

“The fireplace said we’d have to face our greatest fears. What are your greatest fears, Howard?”

Howard stiffened, coming to a halt near the first door, suspicious suddenly of Vince’s motives. 

“That’s none of your business. A man’s fears are a private thing, not to be bandied about or paraded in front of a gawking audience, no sir, there’s no telling who could hear and what use they might put such information to if they should overhear a man discussing his fears.” Beside him Vince had stopped and was rolling his eyes, shaking his head and crossing his arms, but Howard wasn’t about to budge. If he told his fears to Vince, his deepest fears, he’d never hear the end of it. “In fact,” he carried on, puffing out his chest as he went. “I don’t have any fears at all. Howard Moon fears nothing, not even fear itself. Oh yes, they think they can frighten me with talk of facing fears well I say to them Howard Moon’s fears have no faces because they don’t exist, ow-chicka-chicka!”

“Yeah, whatever,” came Vince’s less than enthusiastic reply. “I’m scared of needles and automatic doors and those websites that take your photo and age it up twenty years to show you what you’ll look like when you’re old. So let’s get out of here fast, yeah? I don’t need to see what I look like with crows feet and grey hairs.” 

Howard nodded and turned to continue but before he could take a step the door to his left burst open with a bang like a gunshot and a mob of people emerged, all talking and squawking at once, bustling toward them with phones flashing and hair flapping. He and Vince both screamed at the noise and sudden movement but couldn’t run away, there was nowhere to go but back toward the boarded up window. The way out was blocked by the writhing, noisy, colourful, mass. For the barest second Howard thought they were saved, that they had found other people, but in the next moment he realised the horrible truth. They weren’t people. They were a horde, a mass with the vague signifiers of people; a hazy shape that from a distance looked like a crowd but was really a nightmare of faces and arms and trendy accessories. He heard one ask him, in a voice that was nasally obnoxious, whether he sold crisps, another brayed about taking a selfie, and Howard felt panic flood his system. Customers, he realised. Stupid, brainless, browsing, customers! The first of his worst fears!

Vince was watching the mass of vague human shapes with a sort of sick fascination, edging back as he saw Howard begin to cower at the encroaching blob of faces and hands and questions. Was this really Howard’s worst fear? Vince’s friends? Because despite the fact that this was definitely some sort of monster Vince recognised some of the hats and hairstyles and voices: they were the upper crust of the Camden cool, the most fashion forward, the trend setters, the people Vince followed and was desperate to be liked by. Why would Howard fear this so much?

He watched, dis-ease growing, as the strange mass surrounded Howard, yammering and nattering, hands reaching out to poke and prod, and saw Howard begin to fold in on himself, quickly becoming a terrified, weeping mess. If Vince knew anything about his best friend it was how much he hated being touched, especially by strangers, and guilt raged through him as he acknowledged how often he'd ignored Howard’s need for space to feed his own need for comfort. Vince wasn’t a big fan of physical intimacy either but Howard had always been the exception. With an ache he realised that he very likely wasn’t Howard’s exception, and that it wasn’t just large groups of people, or that they were customers or Vince’s trendy friends that had Howard crouched down with his hands over his head, it was the fact that they were touching him. Touching him the way Vince was always trying to.

Without further thought Vince lunged forward in to the fray, tugging at the weird conjoined bodies, trying to pull them away from Howard, trying to push his way through the mass of hands and clothes to his friend, but no matter how he kicked and slapped there seemed to be no way through. 

“Hey, get off him!” he hollered, jumping and struggling as best he could, trying to fight the beast, to catch a glimpse of Howard and know he was okay. “Howard! Howard are you in there? Oi, handsy! Get off my mate! Get off!”

But as he fought to free his friend Vince realised that the hands and faces had turned toward him, and an instant later they had swarmed over his body, grabbing and pulling and tugging and touching, and he shrieked when he felt gelatinous fingers in his hair, and others delving inside his cape, and his boots. The mass of limbs and features began to shift from Howard and Vince felt a moment of relief when he saw Howard hunched over, arms around his corduroy knees, shaking but alive and seemingly unharmed. The moment was short lived however, because in the next Vince felt his clothes being tugged away, his cape first and then the sleeves of his blouse, followed by his beloved boots, as the hands continued to grab and pull, wanting his pretty things, his armour, his protection, everything but Vince himself. 

As the trim was torn from his jeans he screamed for Howard, but no help came and suddenly his feet were off the floor and he was surrounded and entirely at the mercy of the squawking, gibbering monster, swallowed until he felt like just another part of the faceless blob. 

“Howard!”

Howard looked up in time to see Vince half dragged, half carried down the hallway and through one of the multitude of doors. His eyes were wide and frantic and Howard’s mind matched the fear he saw there. He watched as Vince disappeared and the door slammed, the corridor shimmering and warping until he couldn’t tell which door it had been. The silence in the wake of Vince’s kidnaping was deafening and he instinctively tightened his hold on his knees, folding himself tighter in to a ball, desperate to keep the intense, heavy quiet away from him. He was alone! Vince had left him! Vince had been taken away by his new friends, the trendy, fashionable, cool people that Howard would never be able to compete against, the ones he had always known Vince would eventually chose over him. Vince was gone, and another of his deepest fears had been realised. 

***

He ran to the first door, tugging at the handle desperately. There was silence all around him but Vince’s screams we’re still ringing in his ears. When the door finally budged from its warped frame Howard thrust his head through, but the room was empty, grey and devoid of furniture or windows or anything else. He clenched his teeth to stifle the frustrated scream that wanted to escape and threw himself back in to the corridor and then at the next door. That too was stuck and Howard was forced to put his shoulder to the wood to push it open. The room was empty. And the next and the next and the next.

‘It’s hopeless,’ his brain told him as he searched. ‘It’s hopeless, it’s hopeless, it’s hopeless!’ 

“It’s hopeless,” he echoed, turning to the doors on the other side of the hall, checking them as well until he found himself back at the window, the dead end of the corridor. “It’s hopeless!” 

He turned to look back along the rows of doors. There suddenly seemed to be hundreds of them and the task of finding Vince looked overwhelming. He crumpled down slowly to the floor  ready to give up, ready to cede defeat, when suddenly the dim light that filled the house disappeared, plunging the corridor in to a darkness so deep Howard thought he had ceased to exist, his breath coming out in short, harsh, breaths. ‘No, no, no, no, no!’ he thought desperately, first flinging his arms out around him, searching for any sign of the walls that had been there only a second ago, and then bringing his hands in to his face, needing to feel proof of his own reality. He felt the coarse hair of his moustache, the rough stubble, the insubstantial wetness of his tears - he was real, he was real. That fear at least the evil house couldn’t truly follow through on, though it was trying to, was trying to scare him in to insanity and death, just as he’d promised to do. 

He put his hands to the floor, still carpeted thick in dust despite his footsteps. It felt real, felt solid, felt like the wood of the corridor had looked... he was real, he decided, and likely still in the corridor. But he couldn’t stay there. He began to shuffle forward on his hands and knees, hoping that the corridor wouldn’t be so endless when he couldn’t see it. He needed to get out and hang the posthumous wishes of a jazzy ghost, just like Vince had said. He couldn’t waste time looking for the record, not when the house he was in was trying to kill him. He needed to get out. He needed to find Vince and then get out. He needed to-

“HOWARD!”

The word howled through the house with more force than the storm, rattling through the floorboards and shaking the doors so that they swung around on their hinges, hitting Howard as he scrabbled along the floor, desperate to escape. The house itself shook and in the distance Howard fancied he could hear the roaring laughter of the fireplace before the scream came again, and lights began to flicker all around him, not just in the ceiling but through the gaps in the walls and in the floor as well, a fierce white light that burned his retinas even though his eyelids. The scream came a third time and suddenly the light was gone and the wooden floor with it and Howard was falling. Falling as Vince’s voice knifed through his mind.

“HOWARD!”

***

Vince wept, wiping his streaming nose with the back of his wrist as he squatted on the ground, trying to ignore the pulling and prodding and touching of the hands that refused to leave him alone. His clothing had been reduced to rags, which never happened to him, not even on desert islands, and he shuddered at how much of his body was exposed, trying to hide his chest. A slash of skin was alright, he always said, an exposed belly button in a crop top or deep V in a jump suit, but exposed nipples and love handles and back dimples were not on. They weren’t funny, they weren’t fashionable, and Vince liked to keep that sort of thing well hidden. 

Only now nothing was hidden. The only shade was provided by the globulous many-handed thing  all around him, but above and through the gaps in the arms and faceless heads the light was blinding and hot. He wanted to hide but there was nowhere to go and the hands kept on touching and caressing him and making him scream.

“Don’t touch me! Don’t touch me! Don’t touch me! Don’t Touch Me!”

He crouched down smaller, tighter, trying to cover his hair as the hands began to tug it. His hair was all he had left. They couldn’t take his hair could they? Couldn’t take the one thing he really loved, the thing he prized above all else, could they? The tugging increased and Vince felt himself begin to hyperventilate. The hands simply wouldn’t let up and he couldn’t take it anymore, not if they were going for his hair. He needed to get out. He needed- 

“HOWARD!”

His scream seemed to scare the thing around him, at least for a moment, and Vince pulled his hair down around his neck to keep the hands away from it as he tried to think of what to do. What would Howard do? Well for a start he would probably be crying just like Vince was and begging for his life but Vince had already begged to be left alone and it didn’t seem to be working. Then again, his brain reminded him, it had never seemed to work for Howard either.

He tried to crawl away, to find some way through the press of feet and legs and people that wasn’t really people but one monstrous beast, but there was no way and every time he thought he could see light the creature closed the gap, returning to its fondling and hair pulling, but this time adding in kicks as well. They weren’t hard, weren’t aimed at causing real damage, it felt to Vince more like he was being fielded, pushed about like a football, or herded. The kicks kept him in the centre of the beast’s many legs, kept him contained and trapped, and made him feel worthless and trapped at the same time until he wanted to do more than cry, because tears couldn’t rightly show just how scared and sad he felt. This was probably the point in the torment when Howard would revert to poetry or Shakespearian howling to express his emotions but Vince didn’t have his way with words and there weren’t any real people around to hear them in any case. 

Still, the urge to say something, to let something out, was too strong to ignore, and when a hand entered his hair and scraped its fingertips across his scalp Vince let out the only word that his throat would make.

“HOWARD!”

Again the hands retreated, but the Thing did not. Instead it seemed to grow taller, looming over him as he cowered, the strange, fleshy heads closing over him to block out the light above. This was by far the worst situation Vince thought he’d ever been in, worse even than the time the monkey king had tried to steal his face and had hunted him the length of the entire jungle. This fear was beyond anything Vince could have dreamed up, but it was his fear all the same. At least, he thought, things couldn’t possibly get any worse.

As if on cue the heads hovering above him began to change and Vince looked up at the strange, squelching sound above him, only to watch in horror as the heads grew faces, the faces of people he had known, people he had idolised, people he had befriended, people he’d worked so hard to be accepted by, staring down at him with malicious glee, their eyes empty and grins unnaturally wide.

Crouched at their feet Vince felt unbearably small, like the wild little boy he’d once been, and the fear he’d felt as a child bubbled up, threatening to strangle him as he registered the disdain the faces felt for him. And then they began to speak. 

“What a loser.”   
“Did you see his outfit? What was that about?”  
“He’s so clueless.”  
“Such a fashion disaster!”  
“What made him think he could get away with a look like that?”  
“What a loser.”  
“Ha ha! Did you see him? He actually thinks he’s cool.”  
“The only person who makes Vince Noir look cool is that freak who’s his only friend.”  
“I heard he’s not even his real friend. I heard Vince has to pay him.”  
“What a friendless wonder.”  
“What a fashion victim.”  
“What a loser.”  
“Vince Noir, what a loser!”  
“All alone. Vince Noir, no friends.”  
“What a loser.”  
“What a loser.”  
“What a loser.”

The voices weren’t particularly loud, or supernatural, or devilish. They were voices he recognised, all the things he’d heard whispered, both in clubs and in his ear at night as he tried to sleep. It was all true. He was a loser, a fashionless, friendless, loser! He pressed his head to the floor, pulling at his hair, unable to look at the faces any longer, unwilling to hear the words but he couldn’t seem to block it out.

‘You’re a loser, a loser, a loser, a loser!’ His brain told him and Vince shook his head, even though it was true and everyone knew it. ‘You’re a loser and you’re going to die alone dressed in tattered rags and covered in dust and dirt, just like you were when Bryan found you. You’re alone and none of the cool people you were so desperate to impress will even notice you’ve gone. You have no one’

Vince shook his head and sobbed  but this time he knew that his brain was wrong. He was alone right now, but he wasn’t entirely alone, not really.

“No,” he whispered through lips red and swollen from crying. “No, you’re wrong! You’re wrong!” For the briefest moment the voices above him faltered and Vince took a deep breath, straightened his back, and looked up at them, his black hair flying back from his face artfully as he stared down the monstrous bullies that made up his fears. “You’re wrong. I’m not alone. I have Howard. And he is my friend. Howard?” He called, watching the creature waver around him, confused by the fact that he was fighting back. 

“Howard?” He tried again, sure somehow that Howard was close, that he’d be able to reach him if only he could get out from within the creature’s grasp. He took another breath to gather his strength and to remind himself that he was a cockney nightmare who could hold his own in a fight, and then lunged forward toward the Thing, pushing it so that it stumbled and it’s jelly-like body began to give and then to rip. 

“HOWARD!” he screamed, finally breaking free of the monster and tumbling out in to the blinding whiteness beyond. He laughed as he realised that he really had escaped, but had no idea what to do next. All he knew was that he needed to find Howard and get the hell out of this twisted house because if he’d been reduced to a crying mess then there was no telling what they’d done to Howard. It was how their dynamic worked after all: Howard got them both in to trouble, Vince found a way around the trouble and then went and saved Howard. It was hard to be scared when Howard was there and he could focus on their dynamic.

With that thought in mind, and a glance back to see that the mob creature had reformed itself with a slurp and a squish, Vince scrambled through the burning white, toward the faint outline of the door. He grabbed hold of the handle and pulled as hard as he could until it finally gave in and opened, but there was no corridor beyond. Instead Vince was sucked in to a thick, black, nothingness, screaming as he fell, shielding his face with his hands against the floor he hoped would eventually come. 


	3. Chapter 3

Howard hit the cold ground with a thud, feeling his cords tear at the knees against the packed dirt. 

‘You’re going to die,’ his brain told him. ‘You’re in the dirt, in the dark. You’re dead again, Howard. Only this time there’s no limbo, no second chance, no coming back. Not even a funeral because nobody knows you’re here and nobody cares.’

Howard whimpered. He didn’t want to die. He hadn’t enjoyed it last time ‘round, even if it had been relatively painless, and he doubted this death would be as simple as a reaper turning up and slicing his spirit away from his body. 

Suddenly in the darkness he heard a noise. A chittering, like some sort of animal, a monkey or a hyena. Howard had always been a better zookeeper than anyone gave him credit for and he could recognise animal calls, especially when he suspected the animals were laughing at him. 

The sound came again and Howard began to sweat as his ears confirmed that it was monkeys, hooting and chattering in the dark. He couldn’t see them, couldn’t tell how far off they were or how many there were and so couldn’t know which direction he could move to be safe. The monkeys laughed again, their volume increasing, and Howard cringed away from the noise. At least, he thought, he couldn’t understand what they were saying. From what Vince had told him, some of the smaller chimps could be cruel and downright vicious.

“What a dick,” came the sudden voice in the dark. “What a loser. Shall we steal his face?”  
“What for?” came the chittering reply. “His face is blander than a Coldplay cover.”  
“To eat, of course!”

Howard lifted his head, his eyes widening until they felt dry and full of prickles. Vince’s stories had always seemed so far fetched and even if Howard did believe that he could talk to every animal he had always taken his stories with a pinch of salt. The tale of the monkey king trying to steal Vince’s face had always been one of his favourites but he hadn’t thought there was any truth to it. The idea of a small child being stalked by murderous chimps was horrific and he felt a sudden jolt of terror in his chest, but not for himself - for Vince, and what horrors the demonic house might be throwing at him if his childhood had included fears like this.

The monkeys continued to laugh and hoot and it took Howard a moment to realise that he could understand them, when he’d really only been able to understand foxes and Bollo before now, and he sat up, trying to figure out why that might be. He wasn’t afraid of monkeys, had never had a nightmare about his face being stolen. Sure the idea of being in a pitch black hole in the dirt was frightening and he definitely feared dying, but monkeys? Unless, of course, the house and it’s possessed fireplace, had made a mistake and sent him in to a scenario made for Vince. 

Climbing carefully to his feet Howard began to feel angry. How dare this place dredge up such a terrible memory from Vince’s past! How dare it try to re-traumatise a child who had been put through so much and then been dumped on the mean London streets! Howard was still cross about how Vince had been dropped off by his absent-minded guardian at the tender age of ten, a tiny, malnourished child with wild hair and wilder eyes, suddenly in a foreign country. He’d been furious about it as a boy and had summarily dragged the odd child home with him so that his nan could clean Vince up and feed him properly, and he was still furious now. Only now Nana Moon wasn’t around to do the coddling so it was Howard’s turn. He’d forgotten for a while (the last few years at least, since Vince had taken to the Camden scene) but it needed to be done, and he was the Moon to do it. He needed to protect Vince. He could be brave when he protected Vince.

“I hear you,” he said in his most put upon, geography teacher voice. The one he remembered his father using when he was very small. “And I’ve had quite enough. Nobody is going to be stealing anybody’s face, do you hear me? For eating or wearing. It’s unhygienic and rude. You should feel ashamed of yourselves. What would your mum think, hearing you talk like that?”

In the darkness Howard could hear nervous shuffling and whispering and nodded triumphantly. He was Howard Moon, zookeeper extraordinaire, he knew how to deal with a bunch of chimps. And if anyone knew how to give a good dressing down, a humbling with a side of shame, it was him. His hand meanwhile had gone to his pocket, searching through the stationary and half empty mint packets and random detritus, until his fingers found the lighter that he kept for emergencies. 

“I’m going to leave now, you hear me?” he said in his most authoritative voice. “You can’t treat people this way, Vince was an innocent in all this and you have no right to dredge up these kinds of memories just because I dragged him along on some foolish errand.” He flicked the lighter which sparked but didn’t ignite, and felt his confidence slip a little but continued talking anyway. He was good at bluffing. “You can’t treat people this way, it’s rude and impolite and leads to nothing but misery, trust me, I know. You start pushing people like this, soon enough you find yourself alone, yes sir, alone and wondering what you did to deserve it but secretly knowing exactly what you did to deserve it because you pushed everyone away, made it impossible for anyone to be comfortable in your company. And someday you’ll reach the ripe old age of thirty-two and wonder why you’re alone. And worse, wonder why there’s still one person sticking by you and refusing to give up on you, despite everything you’ve put them through! You’ve got to stop being a bully just to hide your fear of rejection.” 

Somewhere in the dark he could hear sniffling, and beyond that he heard, and felt, a rumbling in the stones of the house as it too listened and understood the truth of Howard’s hard earned wisdom. He could practically hear the music swelling behind him, highlighting the poignancy of the moment. He was speaking a truth to them that he had never really acknowledged to himself but could no longer deny. 

He flicked the lighter again, glowing in triumph as the small flame flared in to life and showed him that he was in some sort roughly cut basement. The light didn’t stretch far enough to show him the ceiling or any exits, just the hint of a wall, and tree roots, and the shadowed shapes of the monkeys. They were jabbering and gimbering amongst themselves but they were small, much smaller than Howard, and he could see their hands - they didn’t have any weapons that he could see. They were just monkeys. 

He took another step closer, lifting the lighter out in front of him, and saw the little creatures scramble away, but not before he caught sight of their faces. He recoiled at the grotesque masks but didn’t scream. This was Vince’s nightmare, the end of the story he never told Howard, or what might have happened anyway. The largest chimp, the king, Howard guessed, was wearing Vince’s face, the nose and chin hanging low and flapping grotesquely when he moved. It was hard to take his eyes from the sight but with an effort Howard turned to look at the other monkeys and saw that they too were wearing human faces. One looked a bit like Vince, only older and not quite so angular, another was the face of a middle aged woman. Bryan Ferry’s face was there as well and, Howard realised with mounting horror, Nana Moon’s face as well. They were the faces of all the people Vince had lost, in one way or another and it made Howard feel sad in a way he could not recall feeling before. The one solace was that Howard’s face wasn’t among the collection. Vince hadn’t lost Howard and Howard vowed, as he looked in to the eyeless mask of his friend, that Vince never would.

It was a terrifying scenario in its way, that was plain to see, but it wasn’t Howard’s fear, wasn’t something that would torture his mind and memory, not in the way the fireplace had seemed to imply anyway. This was Vince’s fear and Howard’s job had always been to shield Vince against the nastiness of the world, and the nightmares that plagued Vince when he slept. It was why they’d started crimping, to give Vince a distraction in the nighttimes when he woke up trembling and afraid. They would rhyme and sing about simple, happy, everyday things, and the thought of those songs, and the joy attached to them, buoyed Howard up even more. This wasn’t his fear, and that meant he could fight it.

The only part of this place that belonged to Howard was the dark and the dirt, but as fears went it was a bit old hat, he told himself. Howard had been trapped in a box in the dark before, had been trapped in a Jiffy bag, and a cave made of ice, and a merman’s underwater lair. He always escaped. He just needed-

There was a shift in the air above, a sudden ‘whoosh!’ and then with a scream something fell, directly on to the hoard of monkeys. The basement was filled with screeching and monkeys snarling insults and demanding to be helped but Howard couldn’t care less about them. He ran forward and picked up the man who had fallen, knowing immediately that it was Vince, who else could it be? and lifted him away from the chimps, on to the ground, trying to assess what state he was in and if he was hurt.

“Vince?” he asked softly, watching Vince’s eyelashes flutter as he opened his eyes, like a princess in a fairytale, Howard thought. If this was a fairytale this would be the point when Howard would lean in for a kiss but he wasn’t about to do that. Vince had once pointed out that those kinds of kisses always seemed to him to have a bit of a rapey vibe and Howard had no desire to accidentally trigger another one of Vince’s fears. Instead he brushed the dirt and dust from his friend’s cheeks and waited for those blue eyes to focus. 

He was still holding the lighter and thought it was a miracle that he hadn’t burnt either of them, and lifted it higher to assess Vince’s body. It was a nice body, but the clothing was in tatters and felt a pang at what Vince must have been through, all for some record that Howard wanted to find so that he could be the popular one for once. 

“Howard?” Vince said croakily, sitting up with a little assistance. “Howard, where are we?”

“The basement I think,” Howard told him, lifting his arm higher to show Vince, but Vince gasped and began to back away and Howard realised he’d caught sight of the monkeys.

“My face,” Vince gasped, “they’ve got my face! They took my clothes, my face... please don’t take my hair! Oh, please! It’s all I’ve got left!”

Howard pulled Vince in to a one-armed hug and then turned to the monkeys accusingly, pleased to see that they had the decency to look contrite. He continued to glare at them until, one by one, with little monkey feet shuffling and mumbled apologies, they began to take off the masks, revealing ordinary looking primate faces underneath. 

Howard breathed a sigh of relief but Vince was still rocking against his chest, mumbling that he’d tried his best, had tried to save Howard, but was nothing without his face, and Howard turned back to fix the monkeys with his mightiest glare. 

“I hope you’re proud of yourselves,” he snapped at them. “Just look what you’ve done. You should be ashamed! Preying on someone’s fears like this. And showing them to me, as well. For shame. A man’s fears are his own private business and you had no right to show me Vince’s. No right at all, sirs.”

“Now hold on a minute, mate,” the chief chimp piped up, ambling forward and pointing a tiny monkey finger in Howard’s direction. We was just doing our job, see. The house found a fear and called us in to play the part, that’s all it is. How was we to know? It’s not our fault.”

Howard frowned. “But why torment me with one of Vince’s fears?” he asked, because more than anything else that didn’t make sense. 

The monkey shrugged. “This was just a better fear, I guess, gov. Yours were all run of the mill worries, where as this geezer’s got some proper imagination. His fears were like a five star buffet. This old house coulda feasted on him for days.”

“But that’s terrible!” Howard shrieked quietly, holding Vince tighter, rubbing his hand over the pale, freezing skin. 

The monkey shrugged again. “It’s a job, ain’t it.”

“Well it’s past midnight so I hope you’re getting paid overtime,” Howard snapped, taking some small joy in the confused faces of the chimps.

“Overtime? What’s overtime?” they asked, and Howard’s bureaucratic mind kicked in to gear immediately at the chance to get the monkeys on side. 

“If you’re being asked to come in after hours, or work beyond a regular shift you should be being paid more, for the time over, you see? I don’t have time to explain it all but I recommend that you talk to your union, or if there isn’t a union for evil nightmare monkeys, you should form one and fight for better rights. You shouldn’t let yourselves be pushed around by your employers.”

It wasn’t advice that Howard had ever personally taken but he knew for a fact it was good advice, and as the monkeys began to chatter amongst themselves about picket lines and fair demands, Howard turned back to Vince, who had at least stopped shaking.

“That was genius, Howard,” he said softly. “You’re a monkey genius!” 

“Well, I don’t know about that,” Howard replied, blushing at the praise. “It was just common sense really.”

“Nah,” Vince shook his head, sitting up a little more but not moving from Howard’s arms, gazing up at him with an intensity that Howard could barely endure. “It was well impressive. You saved me. I was coming here to save you but you were just, ‘Wham! Punch ‘em in the face with the facts and guilt ‘em back to hell!’ It was well impressive.”

“Well...” Howard shrugged, feeling the heat in his cheeks increase. “It makes a nice change, doesn’t it? Me rescuing you? And I couldn’t have done it if you hadn’t come looking for me and landed on those monkeys now, could I? We’re a team, Vince. Remember?” 

“Yeah,” Vince answered wistfully. As long as they were together, were a team, nothing could really hurt them. “I remember.”

He leant up, lips angled and ready, but the swell of romantic music was cut short by the king of the monkeys clearing his throat in a very pointed manner. 

“So what were you lot even looking for in this dump anyway? This place usually attracts scrappers and treasure hunters and, no offense to the pair of ya, but this place isn’t exactly suited to a gay romcom.”

Howard looked scandalised but Vince couldn’t help but laugh. “We were looking for a record actually,” he explained, perfectly happy to talk to the chimps now that the threat to his face had been eliminated. “A lost recording by some jazz loser. Spitting Socks Susan or-“

“Screaming Sax Stevenson,” Howard interjected. “But that’s not important now. What’s important is you and me, Vince, and-“

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” the monkey said, interrupting Howard in turn. “Enough of that! We know where your record is. It got put here on account of it being so bad it caused nose, ear and rectal bleeding. It’s a piece of shit but you can have it.”

“Really?” Howard jumped to his feet, dragging Vince up with him, though he tried to remember to be more careful when he heard Vince groan at being pulled around. It had been a rough night after all. “But won’t you get in trouble with the... the house, or the fireplace?”

“Oh please,” the monkey rolled its eyes and flicked its tail nonchalantly. “What’s it going to do to us? We’re inter-dimensional, deathless beings from Monkey Hell.”

“Inter-dimensional, deathless beings who are about to form a union and get holiday pay,” another piped up, and the king nodded and twitched his shoulders happily. 

“Exactly. So let’s burn this candle and get you off on your way home, shall we?”

With a snap of his thin monkey fingers the basement disappeared and Howard and Vince were standing on the stoop of the tumble-down, inherently evil, house. They could hear the fireplace raging within, and the bricks were shaking and shuddering, but they were outside the threshold and the the demon, or whatever it really was, could no longer reach them. Howard shivered at how close they’d come to death, or at least to losing their sanity, but beside him Vince was shivering from more than adrenaline and fear, he was wearing next to nothing, just his socks and pants and a few tattered pieces of silver fabric, and the night was filled with blistering icy wind. 

Howard moved to hug him, but in the next moment the monkeys appeared from within the house, one bearing Vince’s cape, which was dirty but otherwise in tact, and which Vince immediately wrapped around himself, thanking the chimp as he huddled in the purple fabric, rocking himself to try and get warm. Another monkey stepped forward and gave him the record and Howard felt a strange mixture of emotions seep through him as he took it. He’d risked both their lives for it, without really thinking through the consequences, but he was still happy it had happened. He’d learnt an awful lot about himself in the last couple of hours and he intended to make a few changes in his life, starting with how he treated his relationship with his best friend. He fancied that, from the soft smile Vince gave him, his lips just peaking over the top of the cape, Vince had come to some similar conclusions. 

“Thank you,” he told the monkeys solemnly, but they only waved cheerily and disappeared inside the house again, whistling as they went and reminding Howard of a little band of chimney sweeps. For inter-dimensional nightmare creatures from hell, they weren’t so bad.

He turned and put his arm around Vince as they began to walk back down the sloping path to the van. Neither wanted to be the first to speak, there was too much to talk about and they weren’t sure where to start, but eventually Howard got up the courage to open his mouth. 

“So... where to now, Little Man? You still want to go to the TopShop factory outlet? It’s not too far from here?” 

Vince gave him a wan smile and shook his head, stopping in front of the van and hugging the cape more tightly around himself. “Nah. I think I just want to go home if it’s all the same. Not really in the mood for shopping or being seen.”

Howard nodded, trying to be stoic, but the emotion of the moment was too much. The romantic music was playing again, swelling loudly until it was impossible to ignore, and he leaned in, determined to do the right thing. But before his lips could reach Vince’s there was a sudden whoosh of flame in the air above the van, followed by a puff of smoke and both men shrieked.

The ghost of Screaming Sax Stevenson appeared, blasting harsh notes out of his saxophone that made Vince’s skin begin to itch. 

“Well looky here!” the ghost screamed, living up to his name, his voice reminding Vince enough of Kodiak Jack to make him begin shivering all over again.  It was a good thing they’d escaped that house when they did, Vince had more fears than he cared to own up to. “You did it Howard Moon!” the ghost continued, wheezing. “I didn’t think you would but you actually gosh darn got it and got out in one piece! Well ain’t that a turn up for the old eye balls!” 

Vince half expected Howard to start preening and push Vince over so it was a relief to look up and see him looking wary. As much as he loved him Howard could be a fickle bastard when he wanted to be. He watched as Howard stared at the album for a long moment and then back up at the ghost before he held it out, grimacing like he’d accidentally bitten in to one of Naboo’s homemade hash treats.

“Take it,” he said without emotion. “Take it and do what you want with it. I’ve completed my part of the bargain and I want nothing more to do with you, or your cursed record. I’m done.”

The ghost began to laugh, his gnarled, cracking chuckle becoming a deep throated belly laugh before changing again in to something far more evil and more familiar. Howard and Vince watched in renewed horror as the ghost’s shape twisted and warped in the air, transforming before their eyes in to the black-skull faced, red eyed, white suited Spirit of Jazz.

“Oh, Howard Moon,” he hissed menacingly, turning the jazz record over in his gloved hands. “I ain’t never done with you, boy. You is mine, boy! We has a pact, signed and sealed in biro, Howard Moon. You is mine to do my bidding until you die or something else decided to come inside you like a glove,” he laughed evilly, and Howard felt himself wilt. It was always something wasn’t it? He was never truly free of the monsters and no matter how many speeches he made or changes he promised to make, he was always sucked back in to the cycle of fear and subservience. He sighed as the Spirit of Jazz began to laugh even more raucously. But Vince was apparently having none of it.

“Oi, you face painted freak!” he challenged, stepping forward on odd socked feet. “Are you saying that if something or someone else gets inside of Howard they can lay claim to him and you have to bugger off and not bother him no more?” He turned to Howard with a wide, sunshine grin and, as if on cue, the music began again, coming from somewhere beyond the fourth wall that they dared not analyse too closely. “I’ve got a genius idea, Howard,” he said huskily. “But you’ve got to trust me, yeah? An’ I don’t have a cold this time round so I can really go for it, you know. You ready?”

He didn’t actually wait for a reply before going up on his toes to press his lips against Howard’s in a passionate, long overdue kiss. Howard moaned and opened his mouth and Vince immediately dove in with his tongue, tasting and exploring and thrusting, doing his best to prove that if anyone was going to lay a claim to Howard (other than Howard himself) it was going to be Vince.

In the air above them the Spirit of Jazz began to howl as his contract and hold over Howard Moon was finally broken, and when the kissing continued even after the contract was burnt and the link was severed he made a noise of disgust and announced that he was getting the hell outta there and that humans were disgusting. He was off to torment indie bands suffering from music block by playing Screaming Sax Stevenson’s album at them as they slept, and disappeared without a trace, never to darken their lives again. 

“Wow,” Howard gasped when Vince eventually released his mouth and he’d taken a few unsteady breaths. “Vince, you saved me! Thank you!”

Vince grinned up at him, his tongue darting out to lick at the corner of his mouth as his eyes danced cheekily. “It’s what we do isn’t it? You save me, I save you, we escape mostly unharmed and with zero proof of what actually happened. Then we go home and make a cup of tea, and pretend it never happened.”

Howard looked a little sad, his eyebrows and shoulders dropping and reminding Vince of an old tired tree but he tried to keep his smile in place all the same. 

“But I don’t want to pretend it never happened?” Howard told him, looking up with a hangdog expression that Vince could never resist. “Not this part of it anyway. I don’t want to fight anymore, I don’t want to push you away anymore. I was so afraid...”

“I was afraid too... that I’d gain a boyfriend but lose a friend. I don’t want to lose you, Howard.”

“You won’t.”

Howard took Vince’s chin between his thumb and finger carefully and kissed him, finally letting go of that particular fear. They took this kiss more slowly, taking their time to enjoy it, expressing themselves as they could only do when alone, when the rest of the world wasn’t watching. It was their third kiss but their first without an audience and they took the time to properly enjoy it.

“Come on,  Howard,” Vince said eventually, tugging him toward the van. “Take me home, make me cup of tea. Then I’ve got some ideas to make sure that jazzy freak will never be able to claim ownership of you.”

Howard blushed but didn’t look away from Vince’s bright gaze. He opened the door with a flourish and helped Vince in, settling the cape over him to provide maximum coverage and warmth, and then got behind the wheel and drove them home. The moon watched, blowing at the clouds that had been swept his way by the storm, and smiled. He liked happy endings.


End file.
